Last month was all about the controversy over the Cochrane HPV vaccine review. This review, it turned out to have an unexpected back story - causing turmoil at the Cochrane Collaboration.Two more posts at Absolutely Maybe:

First up, a new post after a long hiatus at Statistically Funny: Clinical Trials - More Blinding, Less Worry! It's a big topic - and there are so many different ways that bias could creep through the cracks here, that it's worth re-visiting the basics.

With that post, I now had enough background to tackle Clinical Trial Critique 101 at Absolutely Maybe. A recent trial on yoga and depression was a good example to work with there.

Then August was all about the HPV vaccine. A scathing critique of the Cochrane Collaboration's systematic review and meta-analysis got a lot of attention. It shocked me until I dug deeper and discovered how implausible - and sometimes just plain wrong - this critique was. More at Absolutely Maybe - The HPV Vaccine: A Critique of a Critique of a Meta-Analysis.

More for authors next: a quick checklist for Building a Great Scientific Abstract. It's the most-read part of an article - it should never be a rushed afterthought, be misleading, or spin results.

I was delighted to participate in the wonderful bi-annual Research Reproducibility Conference held by the Eccles Library at the University of Utah in June. As well as talking at the pre-conference reproducibility workshop, I participated in a panel on calling out non-reproducible science, with Ivan Oransky from Retraction Watch, and Ed Dudek from the University of Utah, moderated by Scott Aberegg. (It's on YouTube - our panel starts at 5 hours 54 minutes.)